A November 22 article on the Judicial Watch website reveals exactly why the U.S. is over $30 trillion in debt. Sadly, Judicial Watch had to file a Freedom of Information request to obtain the 25 pages of information on this project.

Remember the giant yellow “BLM” that was painted on the street near the White House after the June 2020 BLM riots? Apparently, the geniuses in the Department of Transportation (led by World Economic Forum Young Global Leader Pete Buttigieg) thought it needed to be spruced up. Aside from it being egregious and outrageous to support the race-baiting grifter organization, the price of this project should make even the most ardent big-government supporter cringe.

A purchase order dated September 15, 2023, shows that a vendor charged U.S. taxpayers over $53,000 for “supplies” to repaint the street. Now, granted, the 50-ft tall letters require a lot of paint…but over $50 grand?!? You or I could go to our local Home Depot or Lowes and buy enough paint and brushes, etc., to do the job for a tenth of that cost, easily. But hang onto your hat because that’s not even the worst of this boondoggle.

The labor costs for the repainting totaled $217,680! (No, I didn’t put the comma in the wrong place.). A memo showed that the project “required” a foreman, an operator, a laborer, a carpenter, and a mason. Equipment included a backhoe/loader, a portable air compressor, a Bobcat, a dump truck, a pick-up truck, and a service truck. Why not just a couple of guys in a pick-up truck with some long-handled brushes? Oh, yeah, I forgot…it’s government work.

So, our overpaid career government bureaucrats think that over a quarter-million dollars is a fair price for painting three 50-ft tall words, approximately three to four feet wide? None of these overpaid career bureaucrats could recognize the sheer audacious idiocy of such an outlay of taxpayer dollars? Clearly, none of them have ever bought a can of paint, let alone actually painted anything around their house.

Image: The BLM pavement mural in D.C. YouTube screen grab.

Ah, there’s the rub! The people in government, both elected and appointed in the bureaucracy, clearly don’t look at money the same way most working Americans do. And why should they? It’s not their money, is it? Instead, it comes from a bottomless pool of taxes, so why should they bother to economize or try to get a sensible, reasonable rate for work done? After all, there’s always more where that came from, right? And it looks good on the resume: “Managed a quarter-million dollar beautification project.”

Actually, I guess we should be glad that it “only” cost that much because the original bid submitted was rejected due to hourly labor rates that were considered too high. Good grief! What must that original labor cost have been? Labor costs of over $200K for five people equates to over $40,000 per person…for what (at most!) should have taken only two days (hey, it’s government, so I’m allowing for the gross incompetence, inefficiency, and standing around inevitably found in government projects).

Even if it took two weeks (and that’s plausible, considering how government operates), that’s five people times 40 hours times 2, or a total of 400 man-hours (oops, it’s government, so that would be “person-hours”). Do the math, and that comes out to over $540 per hour!!! If it “only” took a week, double that to over $1,000 per hour…to paint three words on a street (words that should have never been there in the first place)!

As economist Thomas Sowell has often said, the worst form of government is to allow people to govern who never are held accountable for their decisions. Do you think anyone on the org chart who signed off on this travesty will suffer any negative consequences? More likely, they’ll be promoted.

Could you run a business this way or your own household? Of course not! Then why do we continue to allow this idiocy to occur?

Several decades ago, there was a huge scandal about the Defense Department paying $430 for $15 hammers, but the government explained that they “normalized their research and inventory costs” across all assets (i.e., say, $420 was added to the actual price of every asset, from engines to vehicles to tools, etc.). With that explanation, the government wasn’t really paying $435 for $15 hammer. Got that?

I’m sure the bureaucrats have some equally rational “explanation” about these ridiculous materials and labor costs, but don’t go down that rabbit trail. The fact is that you and I paid—not once, but twice!—over a quarter-million dollars for a sign celebrating a racist, anti-American organization that has proven to be corrupt.

Just think about all the other expenses, materials, and labor you and I are paying for in every department of the federal government. You know this was not just a one-time glitch in the matrix; this is how the government spends your hard-earned money and part of the reason we’re over $30 trillion in debt.

Albert Einstein said that the world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but “because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” Well…are you going to do anything about it?